ISIL pushes into Kobani, street fighting escalates

Fighters from Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) backed by tanks and artilleray have pushed into the Syrian town of Kobani for the first time, sparking street-to-street fighting and an order from its Kurdish defenders for all civilians to flee.

Two black ISIL flags were seen flying on Kobani's eastern side on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hours after the militants raised the two flags, the ISIL fighters punctured the Kurdish front lines and advanced into the town itself, according to the Local Coordination Committees activist collective and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"They're fighting inside the city. Hundreds of civilians have left," said Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman. "The Islamic State controls three neighborhoods on the eastern side of Kobani. They are trying to enter the town from the southwest as well."

The center of the town was still in Kurdish hands, Abdurrahman said. Kurdish officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

The AFP news agency quoted a spokesman for Kurdish forces as saying that all civilians had been told to leave immediately.

"Military officials asked civilians to evacuate — they declared Kobani a military area," said the spokesman identified by AFP as Mustafa Bali. "ISIL advanced to the eastern side. There were fierce clashes in the streets," he added.

Earlier on Monday, ISIL fighters raised one black flag on a building on the eastern outskirts of Kobani. At that point, the town's Kurdish defenders said the assailants had not reached the city center.

ISIL, an Al-Qaeda offshoot, has been battling for more than two weeks to seize the predominantly Kurdish town, driving 180,000 residents into neighboring Turkey.

Airstrikes by U.S. and Gulf Arab state warplanes have failed to halt ISIL’s advance, with the group making gains on the outskirts of the town over the weekend and battling to secure a strategic hilltop in the face of fierce resistance. Kurdish sources over the weekend said the town’s defenders were running low on ammunition and pleaded for help from Turkish forces, who have thus far been hesitant to intervene due to Ankara’s conflicting priorities in Syria.

If ISIL enters Kobani, "it will be a graveyard for us and for them. We will not let them enter Kobani as long as we live. We either win or die. We will resist to the end," Esmat al-Sheikh, head of the Kobani Defense Authority, told Reuters by telephone Monday.

Capturing Kobani would give the Islamic State group, which already rules a huge stretch of territory spanning the Syria-Iraq border, a direct link between its positions in the Syrian province of Aleppo and its stronghold of Raqqa, to the east. It would also crush a lingering pocket of resistance and give the group full control of a large stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border.

ISIL has begun to govern its territory by its radical interpretation of Islamic law. Beheadings, mass killings and torture have spread fear of the group across the region, with villages emptying at the approach of pick-up trucks flying ISIL’s flag.

Eskin, reporting from Kobani, said morale was still high "because the people are protecting their own soil."

"They will not allow (ISIL) to occupy Kobani," he said.

But the Kurds’ desperation was made evident when one female Kurdish fighter near Kobani blew herself up on Sunday to avoid being captured by ISIL after running out of ammunition, a monitoring group and local sources said.

"They have ammunition, but it is so little," said Pawer Mohammed Ali, a translator in Kobani for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) that controls semi-autonomous Syrian Kurdistan. "The PYD are just appealing to foreign forces for ammunition because (ISIL) is using heavy weapons, tanks and mortars."

Ali said fighting for control of strategically critical Mistanour Hill, overlooking Kobani, was continuing, and denied reports that ISIL fighters were in the town’s streets. He said Kurdish forces were holding ISIL fighters back but the situation in the town, where water and power had been cut off, was increasingly desperate.

Turkish hospitals have been treating a steady stream of wounded Kurdish fighters being brought across the frontier. Witnesses who fled Kobani said that women with no fighting experience were given grenades to throw, armed and sent into battle.

Kobani's Kurds have so far received little help from the international community. Turkey has given shelter to the bulk of the area's refugees, and its doctors have treated the wounded, but it has given no suggestion that it could join the fight against ISIL beyond gestures of self-defense.

Over the weekend, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to retaliate if ISIL attacked Turkish forces, and on Monday Turkish tanks deployed along the border for the second time in a week, some with guns pointing towards Syria, apparently in response to stray fire crossing the frontier.

Still, ISIL’s release last month of almost 50 Turkish hostages and a parliamentary motion last week renewing a mandate allowing Turkish troops to cross into Syria and Iraq, have raised expectations that Ankara may be planning a more active role.

Turkey's calculations are complex, however. For three decades, Ankara has fought an armed insurgency by the Kurdish PKK, the Turkish sister party of the PYD, who demand greater autonomy in Turkey's southeast.

Analysts say Ankara is now wary of helping Syrian Kurdish forces near Kobani as they have strong links with the PKK and have maintained ambiguous relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to whom Turkey is implacably opposed.

Leaders of Turkey's Kurds have warned that allowing Syria's Kurds to be driven from Kobani would spell the end of Erdogan's delicately poised drive to negotiate an end to his own Kurdish insurgency and permanently disarm the PKK.

Al Jazeera and Reuters

Smuggling in fighters to help ISIL2:41

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VP Biden Apologizes for Telling Truth About Turkey, Saudi and ISISThe vice president’s remarks last week provoked a diplomatic firestorm among key Sunni allies in the region. But he was just telling it like it is.Vice President Joe Biden is apologizing again for speaking the truth. After talking for an hour and a half at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Forum last Thursday, he took a question from a student who asked a wise question: “In retrospect do you believe the United States should have acted earlier in Syria, and if not, why is now the right moment?"

Biden, predictably, said “the answer is ‘no’ for two reasons.” The first being the unreliability, incompetence and radicalism of the forces the United States would have been supporting on the ground. No real surprise there. But then he said what everyone in the region knows and The Daily Beast has reported extensively:

“My constant cry was that our biggest problem is our allies — our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria,” Biden told his listeners in remarks subsequently posted on the White House YouTube channel (go to 1:32:00 if you want to skip the earlier speech).

“The Turks were great friends,” he notes, adding that he recently spent considerable time with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and they have “a great relationship.” Ditto the Saudis and the Emiratis. But when it came to Syria and the effort to bring down President Bashar Assad there, those allies’ policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of al Qaeda and eventually the terrorist “Islamic State.”

“What were they doing?” Biden asked rhetorically. “They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

Note that Biden did not say the intent of any of these allies was to supply terrorists, only that a hell of a lot of the arms and the money wound up in the hands of people who are sworn enemies of the West as well as of Assad.

“Now you think I’m exaggerating,” said Biden. “Take a look! Where did all of this go?”

The point he wanted to make, in a very Bidenesque way, was that over the summer things changed.

“All of a sudden everybody’s awakened because [of] this outfit called ISIL [or ISIS], which was Al Qaeda in Iraq,” said Biden. He sketched the organization’s history: it was “essentially thrown out of Iraq” but “found open space in territory in eastern Syria,” then it worked with the al Qaeda subsidiary al Nusra, which the United States “declared a terrorist group early on.” And, still, according to Biden, “we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them. So what happened? Now all of a sudden — I don’t want to be too facetious — but they have seen the Lord, [and] the President’s been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni neighbors, because America can’t once again go into a Muslim nation and be seen as the aggressor. It has to be led by Sunnis to go and attack a Sunni organization. So what do we have for the first time …” At that point the recording ends.

As blogger Sharmine Narwani pointed out on Saturday, news of these remarks was first headlined by the Kremlin’s mischievous English language news channel Russia Today, while the American news networks ignored them and highlighted the utterly trivial remark by Biden that being VP is “a bitch.”

Narwani also pointed out past reports that the CIA was involved in channeling arms to groups in Syria now deemed terrorist targets — which suggests just how poisonous any relationship on the ground there can be. The Obama administration finds itself condemned for what it has done and what it has not done, when the real problem is that nothing has worked to bring peace or strengthen a moderate rebel leadership.

Whatever the CIA did, in any case, was very small potatoes compared to the massive flow of fighters and to some extent materiel through Turkey that allowed ISIS to take major cities in Syria and Iraq and eventually become self sufficient — with help from millions of dollars a day earned by smuggling diesel fuel, again, through Turkey.

Biden was quoted in the Turkish press going so far as to tell the audience at Harvard, "President Erdogan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border.”

In any case, diplomacy being diplomacy, Biden is now saying he didn’t mean what he said about America’s problematic Sunni allies.

The reaction of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has been slow, since the news broke in the middle of the great Eid al-Adha holiday that ends Sunday night. But the reaction of Ankara was incandescent. "If Biden said these words, then he will be history for me. I never uttered such remarks," Erdogan declared after the morning prayer for Eid on Saturday.

So, Biden set about trying to restore that “great relationship,” calling President Erdogan that same day to “clarify recent comments made at Harvard University,” according to a statement released by the U.S. embassy in Ankara. “The Vice President apologized for any implication that Turkey or other Allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria.”

“The Vice President made clear that the United States greatly values the commitments and sacrifices made by our Allies and partners from around the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey,” said the U.S. read-out on the phone call. “The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of Turkey and the United States working closely together to confront ISIL,” it concluded.

Yeah, it’s a bitch being Joe Biden. But somebody’s got to try to tell the truth sometime..

Is there a “Plan B” in Barack Obama’s brain? Or in David Cameron’s, for that matter?I mean, we’re vaguely told that air strikes against the ferocious “Islamic State” may go on for “a long time”. But how long is “long”? Are we just going to go on killing Arabs and bombing and bombing and bombing until, well, until we go on bombing?

What happens if our Kurdish and non-existent “moderate” Syrian fighters – described by Vice-President Joe Biden last week as largely “shopkeepers” – don’t overthrow the monstrous “Islamic State”? Then I suppose we are going to bomb and bomb and bomb again. As a Lebanese colleague of mine asked in an article last week, what is Obama going to do next? Has he thought of that?

After Alan Henning’s beheading, the gorge rises at the thought of even discussing such things. But distance sometimes creates distorting mirrors, none so more than when it involves the distance between the Middle East and Washington, London, Paris and, I suppose, Canberra.

In Beirut, I’ve been surveying the Arab television and press – and it’s interesting to see the gulf that divides what the Arabs see and hear, and what the West sees and hears.

The gruesome detail is essential here to understand how Arabs have already grown used to jihadi barbarity. They have seen full video clips of the execution of Iraqis – if shot in the back of the head, they have come to realise, a victim’s blood pours from the front of his face – and they have seen video clips of Syrian soldiers not only beheaded but their heads then barbecued and carried through villages on sticks.

Understandably, Alan Henning’s murder didn’t get much coverage in the Middle East, although television did show his murder video – which Western television did not. But it didn’t make many front pages.

Mostly the fighting between jihadis and Kurds at Ein al-Arab (Kobane) and the festival for the Muslim Eid – and the Haj in Saudi Arabia – dominated news coverage. In general, the Arab world was as uninterested in Henning’s murder as we have been, for example, in the car bomb that killed 50 Syrian children in Homs last week. Had they been British children, of course...

But I’m struck by friends who’ve asked me why we are really carrying out air strikes when we won’t put soldiers on the ground. They have noted how the families of American hostages – fruitlessly seeking mercy for their loved ones – keep repeating that they cannot make Obama do what they want him to do. Yet, don’t we claim that our democratic governments can be influenced by individuals, that they do what we want?

And watching David Cameron on my Beirut television last week, I asked myself why it was really necessary for the RAF to bomb the “Islamic State”. He knows very well that our four – or is it two? – clapped-out Tornadoes are not going to make the slightest difference to any assault on jihadi forces. Indeed, he was prepared to delay RAF strikes until the Scottish referendum was over. If so, why did he not defer them altogether to save British lives?

But it was obvious at the Tory party conference that Cameron’s greatest threat came not from a man in Mosul called Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, but from a man in Bromley called Nigel Farage. Thus he waffled on about how Britain would “hunt down and bring to justice” Henning’s killers and do “everything we can to defeat this organisation in the region and at home”, using “all the assets we have to find these [remaining] hostages”. By “all the assets”, he must mean ground troops – because the RAF is already being used – and this we are not, I think, going to do. “British troops held hostage by Islamic State” is not a headline he wants to read. Thus I fear we are going to do nothing except bomb. And bomb. And bomb. Farage can’t beat that.

Like all Western leaders faced with a crisis in the Middle East, Cameron does not want to deal with it – or explore why it happened. He wants to know how to respond to it politically or, preferably, militarily. Our refusal to broadcast the “Islamic State” beheading videos is understandable – absolutely in the case of the actual murders – but by preventing Brits from actually seeing these horrors, the Government avoids having to respond to the public’s reaction: either a call for more air strikes or to demand their annulment.

This secrecy means the hostages do not exist in our imagination; they only emerge from the mist into the horrible desert sunlight when that grisly video arrives. In the region itself, hostages become public property at once, relatives giving interviews and demanding action from their governments.

As I write, the families of 21 captured Lebanese soldiers faced with beheading are blocking the main Damascus- Beirut highway. A Qatari envoy has arrived to help (presumably with lots of cash).

Perhaps we need to reframe our understanding of the “Islamic State”. British Muslim leaders have said, quite rightly, that Muslims show mercy, and that the “Islamic State” is a perversion of Islam.

I suspect and fear that they are wrong. Not because Islam is not merciful, but because the “Islamic State” has nothing at all to do with Islam. It is more a cult of nihilism. Their fighters have been brutalised – remember that they have endured, many of them, Saddam’s cruelty, our sanctions, Western invasion and occupation and air strikes under Saddam and now air strikes again. These people just don’t believe in justice any more. They have erased it from their minds.

If we had not supported so many brutal men in the Middle East, would things have turned out differently? Probably. If we had supported justice – I hesitate to suggest putting a certain man on trial for war crimes – would there have been a different reaction in the Middle East? In the Syrian war, they say that 200,000 have died; in Gaza more than 2,000. But in Iraq, we suspect half a million died. And whose fault was that?

The “Islamic State” are the real or spiritual children of all this. Now we face an exclusive form of nihilism, a cult as merciless as it is morbid. And we bomb and we bomb and we bomb. And then?

In the Syrian war, they say that 200,000 have died; in Gaza more than 2,000. But in Iraq, we suspect half a million died. And whose fault was that?

And yet he doesn't mention the Iran/Iraq civil war, over 1 million killed, Lebanese Civil War, 120,000 killed, Turkish War of Independence, over 500,000 killed, or the Turkish Armenian mass murder of over a MILLION, the Yemen civil war 200,000* killed, But Gaza? LOL WHAT A JOKE...

This report from Iraq (Niqash) is about as depressing as it gets. ISIS is taking over the schools in the Sunni areas. Read on and consider what this means for future generations:

In areas under the control of Sunni Muslim extremists, teachers have been issued a special set of instructions. Among other things they say that males and females are to be separated, all mentions of evolution are to be removed from textbooks and anything that encourages patriotism –like the phrase, “Republic of Iraq” – is banned.

As the school year began in Iraq recently, schools in the areas in the northern province of Kirkuk that are under the control of Sunni Muslim extremists received their own special set of instructions.

The Sunni Muslim extremists group known as the Islamic State, or IS, issued most schools in west Kirkuk –including the areas of Zab, Riyadh, Abbasi and Rashad in the Hawija district - a special document called Bushra Wa Tamim.

One of local school teachers there, Abdullah al-Jibouri, told NIQASH: “This means ‘good news from the commander of the faithful’ as he attempts to banish ignorance and elevate Sharia sciences.”

In fact this was the IS group’s set of new instructions for local schools. NIQASH sighted a copy of these instructions, which were signed by the so-called Ministry of Education of the Islamic State. The most important part of the document states that every student at every stage of school should be considered to have passed the scholastic year of 2013-2014; Iraq’s school year starts in October and ends in June. The only exceptions would be the sixth grade, as well as any students who were failed because they cheated or because they were absent or because they didn’t have the right to participate in exams.

The IS group’s instructions also state the following: “Classes shall be resumed at the beginning of the current school year and will be conducted according to Sharia rules, males and females will be separated and this applies to the teaching and administrative staff too”.

Cancelled classes include art, music, philosophy and social studies classes. Also banned are geography, history and literature lessons as well as any teaching about Christianity. Parts of Islamic education classes have also been cancelled. A compulsory curriculum will be offered by the IS’ own “education experts”. Basic subjects such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, Arabic and English will continue to be taught.

Additionally the IS group wanted the phrases - “Republic of Iraq” or “Republic of Syria” deleted from use and “faithless” songs and poems would be banned, as well as any of the latter that had connotations of patriotism for Iraq or Syria.

In science books, any reference to Darwinism or to natural evolution was to be deleted. This would be replaced by sentences that made it clear that God was the creator of everything. However students would be allowed to study chemistry and physics because these were laws used by God.

Al-Jibouri says that most teachers are afraid that IS fighters might use force in order to guarantee that teachers respect this new curriculum and the new school rules. The group had already made threats against teachers and their families, saying they would destroy their houses and punish them if they did not comply.

On September 14, the IS’ education ministry had told teachers present in the area to go to their schools and start work, says Farhan Hussein Saleh, the head of Kirkuk’s Department of Education, confirming that there’s pressure on the teachers to teach the subjects prescribed by the IS group and to show up at their workplaces.

“If these areas remain out of government control, then students’ grades will be dependent on final exams rather than coursework or mid-term exams,” Saleh says – he is assuming that final exams will be held when the IS group have been driven out of Iraq. Saleh says he hopes this will happen before the end of the school year for the students’ sake.

Currently students who are living in areas under the control of the IS group have been having to travel elsewhere to take official government-sanctioned exams. They went to Kirkuk city or to areas not under the control of the IS group to take the first round of exams. The second round of exams is scheduled for October 12 and the Iraqi government decided exams would only be held in areas under its control.

Students in areas under IS group control will be allowed to take exams in government-controlled areas, says Barwin Mohammed, head of the Kirkuk provincial council’s education committee. Additionally, she says, the local council is helping them do this by helping them gain entry at checkpoints going into the city and by helping bring them to halls where they can sit exams.

Mohammed says her committee is also following up on school conditions in the IS-controlled areas and that it has extended a helping hand to teachers in those areas too.

On the other hand, there are some educators in Kirkuk who don’t care what the IS group has planned for schools under its control. The curriculum being prepared by the IS group is of no interest to anybody but the IS group, states Majid Izzat, another member of the Kirkuk provincial council’s education committee. “Any curriculum that differs from the officially approved one should not be acknowledged or accredited,” he told NIQASH.

Back in 2007, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh sketched out the rationale for the collaboration between the U.S., Britain, Israel, Turkey, and the Gulf Emirates:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

This plan began in the 1980s with a policy paper written by Israeli scholar Oded Yinon – A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties – and was updated in 1996 by the establishment’s neocon faction in A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions,” the document states.

Heck we can't hold Jack accountable for his own lies and deceptions.. Did I say Jack? My BAD, I mean Rat. Oh did i say rat? MY BAD I mean Farmer Rob, did I say Farmer Rob? MY BAD I meant... Oh you get the picture.

On Sunday Vice President Joe Biden called Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and apologized for telling the truth.

The previous day he called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and did the same.

Last week during a speech delivered at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University Biden told the audience the Persian Gulf Wahhabist regimes and Turkey are responsible for supporting ISIS and al-Nusra.

Biden said in response to a question that the

“Saudis, the Emiratis, etc… were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad except that the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. Now you think I’m exaggerating – take a look. Where did all of this go? So now what’s happening? All of a sudden everybody’s awakened because this outfit called ISIL which was Al Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space in territory in eastern Syria, work with Al Nusra who we declared a terrorist group early on and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them.”{...}

This is only part of the story. In fact, the United States, Britain and Israel have played a key role in arming and training ISIS, now the Islamic State. Direct evidence of this support emerged during congressional hearings on Benghazi when the CIA’s “rat line” arms shipment to “moderate rebels” in Syria was exposed.

(NOW FOR THE GOOD PART)

As Infowars.com noted last year, ambassador Stevens, who was killed in Benghazi, was instrumental not only in facilitating weapon transfers to Syria from Libya, but also served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya.

Moreover, the effort by the U.S., Turkey and the Gulf Emirates to support and arm radical Wahhabist factions in Syria – who are the only effective fighters in the proxy war to unseat al-Assad – has been widely documented in the European press while generally ignored in the United States.

Back in 2007, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalistSeymour Hersh sketched out the rationale for the collaboration between the U.S., Britain, Israel, Turkey, and the Gulf Emirates:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

This plan began in the 1980s with a policy paper written by Israeli scholar Oded Yinon – A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties – and was updated in 1996 by the establishment’s neocon faction in A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions,” the document states.

Joe Biden, notorious for his foot-in-the-mouth commentary, inflicted minor albeit temporary damage on the effort to portray ISIS as an arch enemy instead of what it really is – a key component in the effort to take down al-Assad and confront Iran.

Despite Biden’s embarrassing admission the larger agenda – removing Bashar al-Assad and his Shia government – remains paramount. This will be accomplished by supposedly attacking the Islamic State mercenary army, said to number around 30,000 fighters. This relatively small army allegedly controls 25 percent of Syrian territory and a third of Iraq.

Despite air strikes and hyperbolic speeches by Obama and British PM David Cameron, ISIS recently took control of Abu Ghraib and key cities in the Anbar province. It is now reportedly a mile outside Baghdad.

The U.S., Israel, Britain, the Gulf Emirates, Jordan and Turkey share an overriding agenda – to exacerbate the Sunni-Shia conflict and balkanize the region along ethnic and religious lines. This will continue and criticism of the effort will be deflected on the Saudis and Qataris who are impervious and in a position to force an American vice president to grovel at their feet.

'Indeed, customer surveys confirm Bart’s new urban ethic. The average American adult, women especially, will spend as much as a third of the waking day in front of a television. Bimbo TV targets the ladies because women make most purchasing decisions by a wide margin. Daytime TV is a chat, cartoon, and soap-opera wasteland that caters to women who shop too much and think too little. With such home schooling, children are bred for consumption and instant gratification.

The bimbo tube has become the default babysitter too. When you add phone, laptop, and cinema time; you have to wonder how any household ever gets clean knickers or homemade cookies in the 21st Century.

With Shakespeare, it’s not hard to believe that the performing arts held a mirror up to life. With Hollywood, the looking glass is a one-way mirror. With the assistance of opinion makers like Nielsen and NSA, the 21st- century ethos seems to be a matter of catering to low brows and seining wants at the expense of needs. Vulgarity is part of that art.

The American proletariat doesn’t value manners, privacy, or information as much as entertainment anyway. Alas, a culture based on selfishness is a society of volunteer victims. Government, Hollywood, and the dot.com oligarchs are not about to miss a historic opportunity to abuse a public trust.

Control is the wizard behind every hand-held device, every laptop, every flat screen, and every silver screen. And if ‘trending” tells us anything, the moguls of manipulation are a new class of millennial role models.'

The Hillary Campaign is going to need a 'Master Manipulator', a SuperSalesMan of sorts, someone who can induce you to buy shoes when you have no legs, someone who knows raw human emotion inside and out, a fraud artist of the very first order........there's big bucks in it for the right candidate.

Ankara asked NATO to develop contingency plans for Turkey when the unrest in Syria first started and the alliance made plans taking many possibilities into account, Turkish Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz has said.

NATO will fulfill Article 5 of the Washington Treaty in the event of any threat from Syria to Turkey, Yılmaz said late on Oct. 6.

“If there is an attack, NATO’s joint defense mechanisms will be activated,” he told reporters.

Asked about the ongoing clashes in the Kurdish-populated Syrian town of Kobane, Yılmaz said Turkey aims to act with the international community “with minimum damage.”

His remarks came after NATO’s new chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would step in to defend Turkey in the face of any attack from the jihadist militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Speaking during a news conference in Poland on Oct. 6, Stoltenberg against stressed NATO’s commitment to protecting Turkey. “The main responsibility for NATO is to protect all allied countries.

'A Terrible Slaughter Is Coming'On the Turkish border, the world stands idly by as ISIS threatens a massacre in a Syrian town.Jeffrey Goldberg Oct 6 2014, 3:17 PM ET

A cradle left behind by Syrian Kurdish refugees at the Turkish-Syrian border in late September (Murad Sezer/Reuters)

The theme of the week in the Syria conflict—that airstrikes are of only limited use in the struggle to degrade and destroy the Islamic State terror group—is about to be underscored in terrible fashion in the besieged border town of Kobani, which is under sustained, and mainly unanswered, assault by as many as 9,000 ISIS terrorists armed with tanks and rocket launchers.

I just got off the phone with a desperate-sounding Kurdish intelligence official, Rooz Bahjat, who said he fears that Kobani could fall to ISIS within the next 24 hours. If it does, he predicts that ISIS will murder thousands in the city, which is crammed with refugees—Kurdish, Turkmen, Christian, and Arab—from other parts of the Syrian charnel house. As many as 50,000 civilians remain in the town, Bahjat said.

"A terrible slaughter is coming. If they take the city, we should expect to have 5,000 dead within 24 or 36 hours," he told me. "It will be worse than Sinjar," the site of a recent ISIS massacre that helped prompt President Obama to fight ISIS. There have been reports of airstrikes on ISIS vehicles, but so far, Bahjat said that these strikes have been modest in scope and notably ineffective.

Kobani is located on the Turkish border, but Bahjat said he is receiving reports that Turkey is pulling its troops back, rather than risk armed confrontation with ISIS. "It's unbelievable—Turkey is in NATO, so you literally have NATO watching what is happening in this town. Everyone can see it—the TV cameras are there, watching. It's terrible."

He went on, "This just can't be allowed to happen. I'm upset personally as a Kurd, seeing my brethren killed. I'm upset as a secularist seeing the hope of freedom being murdered and I'm upset as a human being, watching these monsters commit genocide."

Kurdish fighters are outnumbered by ISIS, and they have no heavy weaponry. There are reports coming out of Kobani that at least one female Kurdish suicide bomber has struck at ISIS terrorists already. The situation is grim, growing grimmer, and one in which hesitation by the international community may not be easily forgiven.

Folks, when I saw what the Democrats are doing to this American black woman in Utah, I had to sound the alarm.

Black Republican Mia Love is running for Congress in Utah. Love's liberal opponent and the Democrats have pulled out all the stops, launching a hate website against her, “No love for Mia,” and a $300,000 smack-down ad campaign trashing the sister. Meanwhile, hypocritically, they accuse Republicans of having a war on women.

Folks, it amazes me that Democrats, the MSM, and liberals continue to get away with their scam, portraying themselves as champions of minority empowerment.

In reality, they are overseers of the federal government plantation, committed to keeping us blacks believing we are victims of a racist white America – inferior, intellectually challenged, and totally dependent on our Massa, big federal government, for our survival. They coddle immoral behavior by blacks, which breeds moral, economic, and cultural decline, which leads to more dependency on government. The Democrats, MSM, and liberals' brainwashing of low-info blacks and their efforts to keep blacks in their place are insidiously evil.

Uppity Negros who realize they can achieve their American dream without government are dealt with swiftly and harshly by Democrats and the MSM. Patriotic, self-reliant black Americans, are figuratively branded with a sizzling hot iron by Democrats, liberals, and the MSM with the words Uncle Tom, traitor, Stockholm Syndrome sufferer and stupid “n”-word.

Black woman Mia Love, Republican for Congress, is one such uppity federal government plantation escapee. Therefore, panicked Democrat and MSM overlords are in hysterical full attack mode, determined not to allow Love to break free, becoming an example for millions of blacks to emulate.

Obama; his arrogant lawless chief thug, Eric Holder; and his entire crew are a despicable bunch, hell-bent on exploiting every opportunity to use race to divide and intimidate Americans into allowing the Obama regime to have its way: open borders, redistribution of wealth, trashing Christians while celebrating Islam, and so on.

Conservative/Republican blacks who love their country and simply want government out of their way are a thorn in Obama and his minions side. Hence, the Mia Love's of America must be destroyed.

Turkey will do everything and nothing (by not lifting a finger) to prevent any slaughter of the Kurds, after all the Turks have slaughtered over 100,000 Kurds themselves since 1938. Turkey has a history of genocide, remember the Armenians.

All the while the shiite and sunni wars across the arab/islamic world continues.

Yemen? Libya? Nigeria? The Islamic world is on fire. Not completely yet but almost.

Pakistan, burning.

Wait for the fire to start burning within the western world's moslem enclaves.

On the Turkish border, the world stands idly by as ISIS threatens a massacre in a Syrian town.

That was then, this is now:

LONDON — Warplanes from the American-led coalition fighting militants of the Islamic State were reported on Tuesday to have struck targets in and around the Syrian town of Kobani near the Turkish border in support of Kurdish forces locked in street fighting with the militants.

There is no communication between the Syrian Kurds in Kobani and the Coalition aircraft.

The air strikes are not 'really' in support of the Syrian Kurds, cannot be without communication and coordination.The Coalition airstrikes are in support of the Coalition propaganda campaign, much more so than they are in support of the Kurds of Syria.

The air strikes are not 'really' in support of the Syrian Kurds, cannot be without communication and coordination.

Bullshit. If there is no communication or coordination it is only because we have not sought it. Kobani is a large town. The fighting force there is the best you are going to get in this war. They have been holding off the IS advance for weeks. Kobane is only a couple miles from the Turkish border. The US could walk there to talk to the Kurds. Kobane is surrounded by open desert. You can see it from news reports we see every day.

Wal-Mart plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for most of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer. Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week.

http://www.dougfeith.com/cleanbreak.htmlFEITH FOR THE RECORD - THE "CLEAN BREAK" PAPER

"...These claims are false.

I was not a co-author of the "Clean Break" paper. I neither wrote it nor signed it. I do not believe I even saw it before it was published. The paper was published by an organization with which I had no affiliation. The paper did not have co-authors.

An Israeli think tank, The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), published "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" in 1996. It is a short paper - approximately 2800 words - that offered thoughts on Israeli and U.S. policies on national security and economics...

I recall that my main contribution to the paper was the suggestion that Israel could help both itself and the United States by "graduating" from the U.S. economic aid program. The paper drew on that suggestion. It said that the Israeli Prime Minister could "use his forthcoming visit to announce that Israel is now mature enough to cut itself free immediately from at least U.S. economic aid and loan guarantees at least, which prevent economic reform."...[I agreed then and do so now]

The "Clean Break" paper has become grist for thousands of conspiracy-mongering books and articles..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_RealmA Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

"'Forging A New U.S.-Israeli Relationship'

Israel can make a clean break from the past and establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity and mutuality — not one focused narrowly on territorial disputes. Israel's new strategy—based on a shared philosophy of peace through strength — reflects continuity with Western values by stressing that Israel is self-reliant, does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to defend it, including on the Golan Heights, and can manage its own affairs.

To reinforce this point, the Prime Minister can use his forthcoming visit to announce that Israel is now mature enough to cut itself free immediately from at least U.S. economic aid and loan guarantees at least, which prevent economic reform..."

IMF Lowers World Growth Forecast, With US as a Bright SpotNew York Times - ‎WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for world growth on Tuesday, warning that stagnation in Europe, a slowdown in large emerging markets and heightened political tensions in Russia and the Middle East threatened ...

Wrong. We have been bombing around Kobani for a couple of weeks now and apparently with the same effect.

Kobani is strategically important. If IS takes it, it completes the arc of their control that runs from Raqqa through Alleppo and straight through to the Turkish border and the southern flank of NATO. The Kobani canton is an autonomous self-governing area set up in the vacuum caused by the war. Holding it has been prioritized by them. The Turks are interested in and cautious of Kobani for that exact same reason. Because of its strategic position and the fact that it has been featured so prominently in the news, it would provide a tremendous propaganda boost to whichever side can either take or hold Kobani.

That raises a number of questions,

1. Why hasn't the 'coalition' (read US) prioritized the defense of Kobani with their bombing.2. Why hasn't the US gone full out in their bombing campaign as the IS forces approached Kobane? It's not like they didn't know were they where. I mean all they had to do was go to the eastern side of Kobani and bank left. This same question applies to the current ongoing conflict around Baghdad. We can't afford to lose either city or even parts of them.3. Is the 'rat doctrine' flawed or has the US just failed to put the resources out there? If not, why not? The DOD says the US has spent $1.1 billion over the first two months fighting IS. How much more do we need to spend? Do we need more resources?4. Why haven't we provided the Kurds with what they have actually been asking for. They are running out of ammunition and water and food. Why haven't we provided it? They could have been supplied through Turkey a short distance away. Or, since we control the air, it could have been done by air drop in a pinch.5. Are all the answers tied to the fact that the people doing the actual fighting in Kobani are elements of the PKK and we don't want to be seen providing aid to a group we have identified as 'terrorists'? If so, what about the other 400,000 residents of Kobani who are not part of the PKK.

Finally, the conspiracy theorist in me has to ask the following questions.

1. What has John Kerry been offering Erdogan as inducement to get him to join the coalition?

As I noted yesterday, Erdogan's priorities in order of importance are to bring down Assad, to emasculate the Kurds, and possibly fight IS if he is forced to. If IS took Kobane it is hard to imagine Erdogan would lose any sleep. Did the US agree to let the Kurds get bloodied in order to appease a fellow NATO member?

Well, this is the stuff conspiracy theories are made of.

On the bright side, the civilian population has been ordered out of Kobane. Almost half have fled over the Turkish border. If IS drives the Kurdish fighters out, it will be a lot easier for the US to bomb IS in the city.

On the not so bright side, if the Kurds ever do re-take the city, there won't be much of it left.

The air strikes are not 'really' in support of the Syrian Kurds, cannot be without communication and coordination.

Bullshit. If there is no communication or coordination it is only because we have not sought it. Kobani is a large town. The fighting force there is the best you are going to get in this war. They have been holding off the IS advance for weeks. Kobane is only a couple miles from the Turkish border. The US could walk there to talk to the Kurds. Kobane is surrounded by open desert. You can see it from news reports we see every day.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria.

“We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”

Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda. “We understand that they are pretty bad guys,” Oren said in the interview.

You admitted, just yesterday, that the US was not coordinating with Assad and his allies, in Syria.

More bull. The only thing the Kurds in Kobani and Assad have in common is they are both fighting IS.

Coordination?

Hell, I can provide coordination from my telephone here in Michigan. Christ, they could just use Google Maps in a pinch.

1. Fly north to Kobane. [You should know where it is since you have been bombing there for a couple of weeks. If you see a bunch of tanks on a hill with their guns pointed to the south that is the Turkish border and you have flown a mile or two too far. Turn around and try again.]2. See that large town? That is Kobani. Head for the eastern gates of the town.3. When you get there veer west.4. See those guys running towards Kobani behind those American built tanks? They are the enemy.5. Bomb them.6. Wash, rinse, repeat.

If you want to take out IS, you obviously have to go where they are. Right now, there is a good large chunk of them located right around right outside (inside?) of Kobani. The same can be said of Baghdad. I don't see any excuse for not taking them out.

Or perhaps you have another option for the driver of events, let us know.

Yes, one of the reasons I gave for not getting into this war in the first place, US incompetence in fighting this kind of war as manifest in the strategies we employ, the ROE's we set, and the outcomes we have achieved in similar little tussles over the past decade plus.

"Jack HawkinsTue Oct 07, 12:22:00 PM EDTThose that are interested, should click the link, then find out for themselves."

You obviously have not noticed that your credibility is not highly regarded by others commenting on this link. Why would we waste the time? I read the real article solely to prove a point: Your neo-NAZI proclivities have reduced your brain to silly-putty or potty, as the case may be.

According to Cummins, the engine has specific tuning to take advantage to take advantage of the unique properties found in E85 and is projected to cut CO2 emissions by as much as 50 to 58 percent on corn-based ethanol and as much as 75 to 80 percent with cellulosic-based ethanol. The company is currently testing the powerplant with an Allison 2000-series transmission with auto start-stop to further enhance fuel economy.

I saw a tweet from someone over there, yesterday afternoon, that the Kurds had kicked ISIL back out of Kobani.

The Dutch have "gone hot."

THE HAGUE: Dutch F-16s on Tuesday (Oct 7) carried out their first strikes on the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq, the defence ministry said, with militants possibly killed.

"Two Dutch F-16s this morning used weapons for the first time in Iraq against the IS terror group. They dropped three bombs on armed IS vehicles that were shooting at (Kurdish) Peshmerga fighters in the north of the country," the statement said. "Vehicles were destroyed in the attack and IS fighters possibly killed," it added.

The F-16s are being deployed as close air support, backing up Iraqi and Kurdish ground troops fighting IS militants.

The United States has been building an international coalition for . . . . .

That you tampered with an article from the Jerusalem Post bothers me no more than your tampering with headlines from the Washington Post. What bothers me is that your "headline" was a lie in its totality. People have every right to expect honesty from fellow bloggers. Most of us come to blogs looking for information and opinions that have some basis in reality. If you want to make stuff up, start your own blog and stop wasting our time. Your behavior suggests that Quirk's evaluation of you is spot-on: "you are bat shit crazy."

TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 7, 2014 – U.S. and partner-nation military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria yesterday and today, using attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft to conduct nine airstrikes, U.S. Central Command officials reported.

Separately, officials added, U.S. military forces used attack and remotely piloted aircraft to conduct four airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq.

In Syria, two airstrikes west of Hasakah successfully struck multiple ISIL buildings, including an air observation building and staging areas, officials said, and another airstrike northeast of Dayr az Zawr successfully struck an ISIL staging area and an IED production facility.

An airstrike south of Kobani destroyed three ISIL armed vehicles and damaged another, and another strike southeast of Kobani destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle carrying anti-aircraft artillery. Two airstrikes southwest of Kobani damaged an ISIL tank, and another strike south of Kobani destroyed an ISIL unit.

In addition, an airstrike southwest of Rabiyah struck a small group of ISIL fighters.

U.S. forces employed Air Force attack, fighter and bomber aircraft deployed to the Centcom area of operations. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also participated in these airstrikes, Centcom officials said, and all aircraft safely left the strike areas.

In Iraq, an airstrike destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle firing on Kurdish Peshmerga forces northeast of Sinjar. Three more airstrikes northeast of Sinjar destroyed three ISIL armed vehicles and struck a small group of ISIL fighters.

To conduct these strikes, U.S. forces employed Air Force attack and remotely piloted aircraft deployed to the Centcom area of operations, officials said. Belgium also participated in these airstrikes, officials added, and all aircraft left the strike areas safely.

An airstrike south of Kobani destroyed three ISIL armed vehicles and damaged another, and another strike southeast of Kobani destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle carrying anti-aircraft artillery. Two airstrikes southwest of Kobani damaged an ISIL tank, and another strike south of Kobani destroyed an ISIL unit.

Over the last few says we have seen video of the the Kurds and IS fighting around and in Kobani.

From today's 'Toyota Report', I count four airstrikes with six vehicles and an IS unit (?) taken out in one of the more active and publicized areas in the war.

The use the "pig" is only acceptable when used to describe Jews. Normally, at Friday prayers it is accompanied by "monkeys."

He is a saucy tart, is he not?

Between the U.S. and Britain (380.2 million combined population) there are 12 Muslims serving in Congress and Parliament.Astoundingly, the teeny, tiny, minuscule country of Israel (population 8.1 million) has an equal number of Muslims serving in the Knesset.

The morally superior French and the always hyper-critical Swedes (combined populations of 75.6 million) have zero Muslims in their legislative bodies. I am shocked!

We find four countries here which always know what is best for the fascist, Zionist entity. With a combined population is over 455 million among the four, they just equal Israel in the number of Muslims holding seats in congress. Out of 455 million human beings, these stalwarts of democracy, equality, and diversity can manage to field a pathetic 12 Muslims. A rational person and one not eaten up with bigotry might feel embarrassment for these titans of freedom. A realist might catch a whiff of hypocrisy.

In short, to finish off jihadists, Washington will now work with the man who untilrecently funded and reinforced these same jihadists, and is proud of his loveaffairs with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas's overseas command centerhappens to be based in Turkey. Good luck.

Turkish soldiers in tanks are lined up along Turkey's border with Iraq, "observing"ISIS troops close in on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, in what appears anapproaching massacre.

In pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly become a "martyr" if he getskilled by an army other than Israel's.

Turkish tanks near the border with Syria, October 2014.

Last week, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden had to zigzag between the truth thataccidentally spilled out of him and Washington's pragmatism. In a speech atHarvard's Kennedy School of Government, Biden said: "[Turkish] President (RecepTayyip) Erdogan, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many peoplethrough, now we are trying to seal the border."

The "people," however, whom Erdogan said Ankara had "let through" were the jihadistswhom Turkey had supported with arms and money, and who have now become aninternational nightmare.

In other words, the U.S. vice president was publicly saying that the Turkishpresident had confessed to supporting terrorists...................

For those of you not following the Toronto Mayor's race Doug Ford is now running for Mayor in place of Rob Ford (Rob has cancer). In any case the following little tidbit from the new reminded me of our own boobie:

An anti-Semitic slur allegedly used by Mayor Rob Ford months ago burst into the mayoral campaign during a debate hosted by a Jewish group, with Doug Ford prompting a chorus of boos as he sought to deflect by citing his Jewish doctor and dentist.

The exchange was the sharpest of the night and started with candidate Ari Goldkind saying that he couldn’t stay silent about the “sacred cow.”

“I would start on the issue of anti-Semitism by not having a mayor who refers to us, the people in this room, the Jewish people in this room, with a derogatory name that starts with K,” he said during a debate hosted by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

“The fact that he insulted my religion, whether it was under the influence or not, we cannot have a mayor like that. Because that is where it starts.”

Although Doug Ford ultimately called the remarks “unacceptable,” he at first declined to respond directly and tried to establish his links to the Jewish community. It did not go over well.

CAIR claims a U.S. Muslim population of about 7 million -- considerably more than 2010 Census figures. If CAIR is correct, then, Muslims are underrepresented to a far greater degree in the U.S. than Israel. There should be 10 Muslim seats in the House. That would mean that 80% of the seats that should be held by Muslims based on population alone are not. Hence, the ratio of 8/5 favoring Israel.

If U.S. Census data (2010) is correct, and Muslims should hold four (4) seats in the House, based solely on population, then the disparity yields a ratio of 1/1. In both the U.S. and Israel, Muslims are underrepresented by 50%.

If CAIR has overestimated, the Census has underestimated, and Israel is just about right, then, the ratio again favors Israel -- x/1 (with x being some number greater than 1 and "probably" less than 2.5).

Based on percentage of population only, Muslims should hold about 30 seats in the British House of Commons. Instead, they hold 10. That means that 66.666...% of the seats that should be held by Muslims are not. Israel, then, is more inclusive than Britain, given the base.

Only about 51% of Palestinians voted in the last election. If they did they might move them much closer to that 24 seats estimated by Quirk. May it be said then that if there is marginalization it is self-imposed?

Just about everyone who has ever lived has told a lie at one point or another in their lives, but only a few people ever elevate themselves enough to ‘earn’ the official title of ‘liar’. It takes a lot to receive this title, because, well it takes an awful lot of lying to get there.

But we all know someone who is just a habitual and blatant liar. And there isn’t a person that appreciates liars. The question is, what do we do with them? As christians, do we try and lead them out of their lying? Do we give them the cold shoulder, separating ourselves from them for a season? Or do we just ignore their lies, even if they are most obvious?

These are all things i’ve pondered myself. So, I’m offering you all my best advice in dealing with very dishonest people. It won’t be easy, but we must remember our goal is to give God the glory in all circumstances, not to take any sort of easy way out.

Lying is bondage

The first thing we need to know about habitual liars is that ultimately the liar is a slave. The liar is a slave to some sort of idolizing sin. Most likely the sin is self-perception or fear of man. The liar is afraid of what others may think of them so they lie to alter their perceived appearance. No matter how brash or outspoken the liar, fear lies deep within the person. They may loudly speak of their lies, even to the point that they sound ridiculous, but when it comes down to it, they are afraid and fearful of others thinking poorly of them. This is very common in people who have made grievous mistakes in the past. They do not want to be remembered for this mistake or sin, so they fabricate a false persona to help mask their insecurity.

Deep down, the liar is in pain from the sin they have committed (or sin that has been committed against them). Lying is a hope for a better life. It is the twisted human attempt to free themselves out of imperfection. Unfortunately, for the liar, only Christ can free us of that bondage to our imperfections. Ultimately, lying is a cry out for the cross.

Lying becomes bondage to a habitual liar because in order to cover up a lie, they generally need to lie again. The cycle becomes a perpetual cycle of lies. After a few lies, many people can easily sniff out the person. Yet, even when caught in lies, more lies are formed to scheme out of being caught.

Eventually, the liar has formed their own worldview in which their lies are the foundation. Lies are repeated so frequently that they begin to believe them and even adamantly state them as fact regardless of the proof for otherwise. This shows that habitual lying is the ultimate bondage.

The father of lies

Scripture calls Satan the father of lies (Jn. 8:44), And it says that whenever Satan lies he is “speaking his native language.” If Jesus is “the way the truth, and the life,” then Satan certainly is the dead end, the liar and the darkness. Moreover, when we lie, we are saying things that were fathered by Satan. And when we habitually lie, we are speaking Satan’s "native language.”

Ultimately, a liar is being used as a child of the devil’s devices for evil. Since, Jesus is the truth and Satan is the father of lies, we choose our master with what we say out of the overflow of our hearts. And “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. (Lk. 6:45).

Managing the liar

So that leaves us with the tough task of personally managing a liar in our own lives. As a Christian how can we effectively pursue humility and righteousness and still avoid being sucked in by lies? Here are 4 practical but important things to do:

1. Use discernment

I believe discernment is a gift from God. We must rightly use this gift to avoid believing lies like false accusations about others, blatant mis-telling of stories, and other lies of that nature. The devil is a created being, which means he cannot create bad things. What he can do is use smoke and mirrors to deceive and create division. Lying is his primary tool to do this. And discernment is our primary tool to sniff it out. Look at the track records of the person telling you the story, and take what they say with a grain of salt until confirmed by others. Maya Angelou once said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them.” We must take people who lie for who they show us they are.

2. Avoid triangulation

Triangulation is one person saying something to someone else about a person who isn’t there. Then repeating the cycle over and over. This cycle is dangerous because the person getting talked about never gets to defend themselves. Triangulation is a frequently used tool of the enemy. Next time someone comes to you to talk about someone who is not there, simply refuse to listen. If you do listen, avoid discussing the matter with anyone else.

3. Call them out

Do not allow a habitual liar to continue in their follow. Giving them the truth may open their eyes to their foolish ways. And at the very least, the person will know that their word is no longer any good until they stop lying. Proverbs says, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. 27:5)”

4. Pray with them and for them

Pray that God will bring truth to their hearts. Ultimately a liar needs healing from God for their idolatry, fear of man or deep hurt that is causing them to lie. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal this brokenness to them, so pray that the Spirit will come upon them and wash the deception away.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.